Ms. Bitters
Ms. Bitters is the teacher of Zim's and Dib's class at Skool. A tall, slender old woman of unknown age or origin, she's a grumpy hag who is devoid of any positive emotion and full of demonic hatred for the sun, children, and life in general. Her first name, if she even has one, is unknown. Character origin Directly pulled from Jhonen Vasquez's earlier comic book series Squee! (where she was the title character's unnamed teacher), she evidently possesses paranormal powers, including the ability to materialize out of shadows, levitate, and adopt snake-like movements. In "Parent Teacher Night" it was shown that she records her classes for whatever reason and It was revealed that she's been teaching for a long time as she told the parents of her current students that when she taught them they would grow up to be nothing, showing her contempt for the "failures" that her former pupils grew up to be. In "Career Day", she stated that she had once wanted to be an astronaut. Another strange factor is a scene during the "Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom" in which Ms. Bitters is shown in a flashback as having once been a fairy princess before flying straight into a bug zapper, to the horror of her students. She greatly dislikes children, and has expressed frustration at school overcrowding, as well as disdain for traditional holidays such as Halloween or Valentine's Day (although dislike for the latter could be justified, considering an unknown event in the past changed Valentine's Day tradition from giving out chocolate and cards to giving "Valentine meat slabs"). In the animatics for the DVD she said that she had a Valentine once which turned out to be a squid. Her exact origin was later questioned by her students in Issue 15 of the Invader Zim comic series during her absence. Although many of the children's theories seemed plausible, the most likely was Gretchen's. She believed that Ms. Bitters was an extremely intelligent bug queen who spread a message to her servants to study human strengths and weaknesses. They pursued the second part of Ms. Bitters' plan and started a war with the humans. They lost a lot of bugs, but still gained the upper hand and the humans retreated. Ms. Bitters and her bugs, now low in numbers, burrowed under the Skool, and now they wait patiently in hiding for the right time to strike again. If Ms. Bitters truly was an insect queen, this would explain her odd tendency to be covered in cockroaches in some of the show's easily episodes as well as her prolonged immunity of lice, and the insect-like appearance of Nightmare Bitters, who also happened to be the leader of all the other doppelgängers. A Ms. Bitters bug was also spotted by Poonchy, smirking at him menacingly as he watched in horror and awe. Appearance When her students displease her, she habitually looms over them or bends freakishly with her twisting, serpentine length, clawed hands, appear from shadows and bared teeth while emitting a low-pitched, bubbling growl, feeding the possibility that she is inhuman. Details on her history are unknown though in Issue 15 some possible explanations were given. Due to the fact that her eyes are never seen because of her glasses, there's the possibility that Miss Bitters has quite a terrifying evil eye or worse, demonic eyes. Whatever she is, it has been suggested that she cannot survive in direct sunlight, as seen in "The Voting of the Doomed". In this episode, she was wearing a black, hooded cloak like a vampire, thought to protect her from the sun. In the "Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom", Ms. Bitters was revealed to have an even scarier and somewhat humorous doppelgänger in an alternate dimension; a Satanic creature known as Nightmare Bitters, who is the ruler of that dimension. Sightings Teaching Style Since Ms. Bitters is one of the most petulant teachers in the skool, she often horrifies her students with grotesque "recollections": she claimed to have once been a fairy princess until she was shocked with a bug zapper in "Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom". Also, in "Career Day" and the original Pilot she claimed to have been an astronaut until her spaceship imploded. She also has a dark disposition, which she puts to good use in her "lessons". In "A Room with a Moose", one of said "lessons" was to memorize the copyright information of one of the textbooks, and she stated there would be a quiz on it. She was similarly horrific and inept at teaching in Squee!, as she taught the class that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1429 instead of 1492, even screaming "DESTROY THE NONBELIEVER!" when Squee corrected her, turning his classmates into "textbook zombies". Facts of Doom * Ms. Bitters was voiced by the late Lucille Bliss. She was the voice for Anastasia Tremaine from the 1953 disney movie Cinderella. *In the Latin American dub, she was voiced by the late Rosanelda Aguirre. She also voiced Shenzi from disney's 'The Lion King. *It was revealed in the DVD commentaries that many more of Ms. Bitters flashbacks were to occur in the series, but they constantly had to be cut due to time constraints. *Ms. Bitters' movement are based on those of ghosts, snakes, and the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. *Her favorite student seems to be Zita while her least is Dib. *As mentioned above, before making her debut in "The Nightmare Begins", Ms. Bitters also appeared in the Squee! comics as Todd's teacher. *Ms. Bitters is a character that can be rescued in Nicktoons: Globs of Doom, with Candi Milo providing her voice instead of Lucille Bliss.When you rescue her, she actually congratulates you for doing so.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS9JHtpVVlM *Interestingly, Ms. Bitters has a similar negative disposition to Gaz, but Zim isn't intimidated by her. However, he does show some signs of respect towards his teacher, something he doesn't show for anyone else on [[Earth] - perhaps because he recognizes her as being the Skool's "Tallest". *The biography on the back of the Nickelodeon electronic trading card (written by Eric Trueheart) states that Ms. Bitters isn't human and that she did not come to work at the Skool, but rather, was always there and the Skool was built around her. *Jhonen Vasquez said that Zim is older than any living human, but seeing as Miss Bitters isn't human, it's possible she's older than her Irken student. *Despite being one of the most intelligent characters on the show and as mentioned above that Ms. Bitters isn't human, she still can't tell that Zim is an alien. **It's also possible she secretly knows he is an alien but, similar to Gaz, she doesn't care. *Despite the fact that Miss Bitters shows plenty of paranormal abilities, Dib never once attempted to expose her like he has with Zim for being a paranormal entity. In fact, in Issue 15 he outright claims that she's completely normal, just creepy. *Ms. Bitters made a brief cameo appearance in another Nickelodeon show, The Loud House, during the episode tilted "Linc or Swim", as one of the elders at the pool. Surprisingly, despite several appearances in Invader Zim canon making it clear she can't survive in the sun, she has no problem with it here. Several other Nicktoons elders also make their appearance alongside her.https://www.facebook.com/nickelodeon/posts/10154256600381318 *Other than a non-speaking cameo at the beginning, she is the only principal character in the franchise to not appear in Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, most likely due to Lucille Bliss' death. References See also *Ms. Bitters' and Dib's Relationship *Ms. Bitters and Zim's Relationship *Ms. Bitters' and Zita's Relationship *Skool *Skoolchildren *Ms. Bitters/Images es:Señorita Bitters Category:Skool Staff Category:Supporting characters Category:Females Category:Unknown Races Category:Characters Category:Screenshots Category:Skool Category:Earth Category:Teachers